Russia quadrupled spending on state media since the start of the war
The Russian government dramatically expanded state funding for the media after the outbreak of war with Ukraine. In March, 11.9 billion rubles were spent on them, while in total for January and February – 5.5 billion. On the statistics Ministry of Finance processed attention edition of The Moscow Times.
In total for January-March on federal TV channels, the agency and the publication of the federal budget, 17.4 billion rubles. This is 3.2 times more than in the same period last year.
The growth in media spending was the fastest in terms of percentage among all items of expenditure. For example, funding for the army increased by only 11% (up to 824 billion rubles), national security and dietary fiber – by 5.6% (up to 501.6 billion rubles). The budget in the field of social support for citizens grew by 6.5% (up to 1,719 trillion rubles).
At the same time, the federal budget for the three months of 2022 also increased sharply. Oil and gas revenues increased by 83% and amounted to 2,974 trillion rubles; tax collections increased by 14% (up to 4,195 trillion rubles). By the end of March, the budget surplus was 1,151 trillion rubles – almost 6 times more than last year.
Total state funding of state-owned media in the expected year is 114.8 billion rubles. Most of all (28.7 billion rubles) is pledged for TV Novosti, which manages Russia Today. In second place with 25.2 billion rubles is VTRK. 9.3 billion rubles were pledged for the Rossiya Segodnya MIA, 3.6 billion – for the ITAR-TASS agency.
Another 6 million dollars to Channel One, 1.8 billion rubles should be received by the Zvezda channel, 1.73 billion by the Public Television of Russia and one billion in revenues from the Ostankino television center.
Also, 7.5 million rubles in the form of a collective subsidy are allocated to the budget of Channel One, NTV, TRK “Petersburg”, “TV Center” and “Karusel”.